Recursion Pharmaceutical, Akoya Biosciences, and Biomea Fusion kicked off life as public companies Friday. Shares of Recursion soared as much as 78%.
Recursion and Biomea are biotechnology firms, while Akoya provides technology to biotechs. All three are trading on the Nasdaq.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals (ticker: RXRX) uses software, algorithms, and machine learning to develop new drugs for oncology, rare genetic diseases, and infectious diseases like clostridium difficile, or C-diff. Shares of Recursion opened at $30, and hit a high of $32 within minutes of opening. Shares recently changed hands at $30.40, up nearly 69% from its $18 offer price.
The strong performance came after Recursion increased the size of its initial public offering twice, ultimately raising $436.4 million. The Salt Lake City-based company initially filed on April 12 to sell 18 million shares at $16 to $18 each, which it boosted three days later to 22 million. Recursion increased the deal size again on Friday and sold some 24.2 million shares at $18. The company plans to trade under the symbol RXRX.
Like most biotechs, Recursion isn’t profitable. Losses widened to $87 million for the year ended Dec. 31 from $61.9 million in 2019, a prospectus said. Revenue rose 71% to nearly $4 million in 2020.
Akoya Biosciences (AKYA) also began trading. The stock opened at $26, peaked at $27.88 and recently traded at $25.35, up nearly 27% from its $20 offer price. The company collected $131.6 million after selling 6.58 million shares at the top of its $18 to $20 price range.
Akoya provides spatial biology solutions that help biotech researchers perform tissue analysis and spatial phenotyping. Its customers use Akoya’s technology to understand diseases such as cancer and neurological and autoimmune disorders.
Losses for Akoya increased to $16.7 million for the year ended Dec. 31 from $14.8 million in 2019, a prospectus said. Revenue was flat at $42.4 million in 2020.
Lastly, shares of Biomea Fusion (BMEA) rose in their market debut. The stock opened at $20, peaked at $22.22 and recently changed hands at $17.50, up nearly 3% from its offer price.
The Redwood City, Calif.-company also boosted the size of its deal, raising $153 million. It sold 9 million shares at $17 each, up from the 7.5 million shares at $15 to $17 it had planned to sell.
Biomea is developing small-molecule drugs to treat patients with genetically defined cancers. Its lead product candidate, BMF-219, treats liquid and solid tumors that are highly dependent on menin (a protein that is believed to play a role in cancer), including leukemias. It plans to file an investigational new drug application for BMF-219 with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the second half of 2021.
Losses for Biomea widened to $5.3 million in 2020 from about $1.2 million in 2019, according to a prospectus. Biomea hasn’t generated any revenue.
Write to Luisa Beltran at [email protected]
